GWAR’s Berzerker Blothar has hit out on the US authorities’s proposed cuts to public media, urging followers to do their bit to dam the invoice.
In Might, Donald Trump signed an govt order that may finish the federal funding for organisations together with Nationwide Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), with the laws now going through a important vote within the Senate.
The invoice would save $1.1billion, with Trump arguing that NPR and PBS are “biased media” that don’t supply “honest, correct, unbiased and nonpartisan information protection”. Defenders of public media, alternatively, argue that it serves as the one media supply for a lot of rural, Native American and island communities, with greater than 44million folks counting on public radio each week and public TV reaching over 160million folks yearly.
Now, GWAR bassist and singer Blothar has issued a rallying cry for folks to withstand the passing of the invoice. In a video posted to X, he stated: “People, that is the Berzerker Blothar of GWAR and I’m right here to speak to you about public media. Public media is in peril.”
Blothar with a vital message about public media. Public media is in peril. Go to https://t.co/jYxXw24S35 to be taught how one can urge Congress to avoid wasting public media. Name your senators. Make a distinction. pic.twitter.com/uItxiEiubc
— GWAR (@gwar) July 14, 2025
“You recognize a few years in the past my private good friend, the nice Fred Rogers, he testified in Congress in regards to the worth of public media, about how essential it was in youngsters’s lives,” he continued. “He famously secured funding for Nationwide Public Radio as a result of he was capable of display that it makes a distinction and that’s essential. Mr. Rogers introduced love and lightweight into the world, right into a darkish and hateful world.
“Nicely, now that’s on the chopping block proper now,” he added. “The Senate will vote on a Home-passed Rescissions Act this week that can remove $1.1billion in already authorized funding for public media. This might strip important companies. It might pressure rural stations to go off the air solely. They received’t be capable of pay licensing charges the identical means they did for music. This might very effectively silence the music.
“I’ll let you know what else. It’s going to remove artwork and tradition or no less than entry to that from the lives of people that want it and profit from it.”
“Stand up, folks!” he urged. “Within the identify of Fred Rogers! Within the identify of Huge Hen! Within the drunken Girl Elaine Fairchild! Adjustments to this invoice are nonetheless potential. Now could be the time to induce your senators to take away the proposal that targets public media within the bundle of this Huge Stunning Invoice.”
He implored folks to go to protectmypublicmedia.org to stress Congress. “Name your senators. Make a distinction. Do it now as a result of there’s not a variety of time. Thanks!” he concluded.
Trump has beforehand dubbed the media the “enemy of the folks”, and beforehand took to the Reality Social platform to write down: “Republicans should defund and completely disassociate themselves from NPR & PBS, the novel left ‘monsters’ that so badly harm our nation!”
Paula Kerger, president and CEO of PBS, has stated: “The president’s blatantly illegal govt order, issued in the midst of the night time, threatens our skill to serve the American public with academic programming, as we now have for the previous 50-plus years.”
Different cuts from the Trump administration to boost the ire of the leisure trade embrace these to the USAID finances, which Elton John warned would have “devastating results” on the worldwide response to HIV.
